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The Oral History of the TRIAD Universe: Part I
The Oral History of the TRIAD Universe Part 1: The Origin of TRIAD The scene begins in a studio that has been furnished rather like a living room, with a sofa and various cushy armchairs. In one of those armchairs on one end of the room sits a face familiar to those who partake of the evening news, JoAnne McDonnell, freelance journalist and frequent contributor to the various news networks. She sits with a small handheld recorder. Next to her, in the next chair, sits a slightly scruffy looking gentleman, his tiny wire-frame glasses and slight build giving him the air of an intellectual, but the tan, leathery texture of his skin speaks of an outdoorsman. He is Mike Flemming, another freelance journalist, one known for his groundbreaking exposes on Old Earth and, more recently with the so-called “Graveyard Heroes”. He holds a wire-bound notepad and a writing utensil. A couple chairs over sits a striking looking woman with reddish-tan skin, coal black hair bound up in two long braids that draped down her neck, over her shoulders, and down her torso. Her attractive face is adorned with almost chalk-like decoration, some sort of face paint. She looks towards the two reporters. On the other side of the seating arrangement, on one end of a sofa, sits another individual, a man in what appears to be dark blue body armor, his face hidden behind an almost insect-like mask, antennae jutting up along each side of his helmet. Coiled along the back of the couch is his most unusual feature, however, an apparently mechanical tail, the end of which comes to a nasty-looking point. The end twitches gently, almost like a serpent on the lookout for prey. He leans in towards the others, yet his distant proximity and his body language suggests some discomfort in the intimate setting. JoAnne begins. “Good evening, everyone, I am JoAnne McDonnell, and I am here with Mike Flemming to bring you the first in a series of exposes about the modern history of Altair, beginning with “The Origin of TRIAD”. Our special guest, the current leader of TRIAD, Shayra Fighting Bear, joins us tonight for our broadcast. Thank you for agreeing to talk to us tonight.” “My pleasure, JoAnne,” Shayra replies, pushing a stray lock of hair from her face. “I think this is a really important thing you and Mike are doing here tonight.” “Also in studio,” JoAnne continues. “Is the enigmatic one-time adversary of TRIAD and former Minister of Parahuman Affairs, Kane Arachnius, better known as Scorp.” “Those who forget history,” Scorp responds in a mechanical, digitized voice. His jaw does not move. He has no apparent mouth with which to speak, the sound seems to be coming from a series of tiny holes where the mouth would be on his facemask, if he had one, that is. He continues after a pregnant pause. “Are doomed to repeat it. And there is some history I’d rather not repeat.” “Thank you, Scorp,” Mike replied. “I’m glad you agreed, too, since for much of TRIAD’s history, you were an enemy of theirs.” “Like I said,” Scorp replied curtly. “Some history I’d rather not repeat.” “Now, Shayra,” JoAnne offered politely. “You are the successor to a couple of rather famous people that were charged with the duty of leading TRIAD. Would you like to mention them?” “Sure,” Shayra responded, folding her hands on her lap. “Altair’s late president, Kim Allen, was my immediate successor. Before she moved into the political arena, she had led TRIAD for a number of years. She was the one that promoted me when she began her political aspirations. Her father was the leader prior to that…” “Derrik Allen,” Scorp interrupted. “My brother. He changed his last name from Arachnius when he became ambassador to Altair from Gemini.” “Right,” JoAnne said, nodding softly in the affirmative. “He was also TRIAD’s first recruit, was he not?” “Yes,” Scorp confirmed, tail holding very still. “He became their primary recruiter after that.” “So tell the audience a little about how TRIAD got started in the first place, would you guys?” requested Mike. “Sure,” Shayra replied, nodding. “Really it was out of necessity. Prior to entering into treaty with Gemini, Altair really hadn’t had much of an impact on interplanetary affairs. While many species from many worlds coexisted on Altair, they had, for the most part, assimilated. But between the growing tension between Altair’s core government and the hereditary ruler of Gammador, and the war between Gemini and Zyr Vaedi, it became clear that Altair was in desperate need of an intelligence gathering and troubleshooting agency capable of dealing with interstellar matters. That was “Project TRIAD”, which eventually became known as simply TRIAD.” “You mentioned the war between Gemini and Zyr,” Mike said, as he finished scrawling something on his notepad. “You are a veteran of that conflict, Scorp, would you mind commenting?” “My brother Derrik and I,” Scorp began. “Both worked for the Geminian Military Corps, Derrik fell into military intelligence, I was active in a… more direct capacity…” “You were a soldier?” Mike queried. “Something like that,” Scorp replied, the end of his tail again twitching, almost cat-like, as he spoke. “Special Forces, specifically. Working behind enemy lines. Sabotage, even assassination if it came to it, that sort of thing. That’s how I ended up with all of my… add-ons…” He pointed his thumb at his cybernetic tail. “Ended up too close to a plasma-explosion and lost all four limbs, my face, even my voice. Military Cybernetic engineers were able to put me back together, sort of, but it took me a very long time to get my mind right again…” “Hence your early opposition to TRIAD?” JoAnne asked. “Yeah. Shortly after I had completed physical rehabilitation, I went rogue and became something of a mercenary.” “Getting back to TRIAD itself a moment,” JoAnne then redirected. “Shayra, can you tell the audience a little bit about the founders of TRIAD?” Shayra nodded in the affirmative. “As many of you know, TRIAD was founded, initially, by three of the first emancipated androids, a trio that originally worked with The Guardians back in the forties. Blitz, Shades, and Lockjaw were their names, and they were tasked with assembling this agency.” “Many people questioned whether or not androids could complete such a task,” JoAnne commented. “Team building is often looked upon as a very… human… experience.” “That’s true,” Shayra confirmed. “But like a lot of modern androids, the three of them had been given adaptive personality matrices, “Personality Programs” in layman’s terms. Essentially, they developed their individual personalities rather organically by integrating aspects of those around them. It’s really not much different from the way a child picks up values and morals from his or her parents and friends. And all three had spent extensive time among both Altairian government dignitaries and, more importantly, a pretty tight-knit group of heroes, the original Guardians.” “I don’t want to spend too much time on this right now since the Guardians will probably end up with their own profile at some point,” Mike interjected. “But maybe you guys could summarize their role for those who aren’t that familiar with a group from almost a half a century ago.” “The Guardians,” Scorp offered. “Were Altair’s first sanctioned super-hero team. As the numbers of parahumans increased exponentially and, in many cases, the powers of those that would do wrong grew, the Altairian government made the decision to formally authorize the Guardians with police powers. I tangled with them some, very early on.” “So why would Altair need TRIAD if it already had the Guardians?” Mike asked. “Well, the truth is,” Scorp continued. “That while the Guardians were very good at the black-and-white save-the-world type stuff, subtle was one thing they were not. And sometimes a little stealth, a little deception, a little infiltration was what was needed. On top of that, they were like celebrities through much of their run, so they could hardly try to work undercover. And, I’m sure there was a political calculation being made- let the Guardians handle the big, popular stuff, where TRIAD would be involved with the less popular or even unpopular things a government must sometimes do to remain sovereign.” “And that’s where TRIAD fit in,” Shayra added. “Initially, and for most of their history, TRIAD was made up of agents and soldiers, not super heroes. As a general rule, more oriented towards skills and expertise than raw parahuman might. Now, TRIAD has always had some heavy hitters, guys that could go toe to toe with a super-villain or even a member of the Guardians if it ever called for it, but that was not their role. TRIAD mostly operated behind the scenes.” “My brother,” Scorp added. “Was an especially good fit. He had trained as a soldier, had worked in military intelligence, and then had become an ambassador to Altair. So it was natural that he was among the first that Blitz and the other choses to lead TRIAD.” “Tell us a little bit about the first wave of recruits, would you?” JoAnne asked as Scorp paused. “Yeah, well, the first two recruits were Derrik’s bodyguards during his time as ambassador. Garr was a veteran of a number of conflicts and had racked up a couple big victories during the early part of the Geminian War, and Dakin Cooper was one of Derrik’s closest friends. Both were Geminian, like Derrik, Garr was cybernetically enhanced; Dakin was a full-blown parahuman. As some of you might or might not know, Garr didn’t work out so well, but Dakin is a member to this day. They say post-traumatic stress disorder combined with some unusual reactions to the background level of Khedrium radiation in Altair’s magnetosphere are what drove Garr over the edge. He murdered another TRIAD operative before he ultimately killed himself.” “TRIAD has had its share of tragedy, that much is certain.” JoAnne assessed. “Go on.” “After that,” Shayra interjected. “Was something of a recruiting drive. As I recall, a number of the more noteworthy recruits included the Terran cyborg Rik, Hawk, an Aviaro sharpshooter and technician that eventually went on to become the late Starhawk, Kat, a veteran soldier who still works for me at the main HQ, and Kobron, one of those heavy hitters I mentioned earlier. He only just recently returned to the fold after decades of being something of a loose cannon due to some sort of telepathic mishap that drove him pretty much mad. There were some others, too. Dargon, another cyborg, works for us part-time after coming out of retirement during Foundation’s attack on our HQ. Oh and I don’t want to forget Panther, the aforementioned victim of Garr’s murderous breakdown. He was something of an independent operator and a bit of a go-between for the Guardians, and us, since he had some connections there. The next wave was even more massive. That was, in fact, when we first set up Outpost 6, in Division Valley. Teralin and Telina, cousins to Derrik and Scorp, the shapeshifter Cahokia, hitters like Stargod, Sunblaze, and Zamarack, who was, by the way, the first Norakian we ever encountered, even though we didn’t realize it at the time. Even Firelord, leader of the Guardians, eventually joined as an official liason between the Guardians and TRIAD. Oh, and, of course, Ironwolf. He came to us by way of the Guardians as well. There were others, too. But of course we know what became of most of them…” JoAnne nodded and replied with a somber tone. “The Division Valley Massacre.” “This is a pretty good place to stop, I think,” Mike volunteered. “Next time, we will pick up with some of the noteworthy operations of TRIAD in those days, up to and through the start of the Mechtan War. Thank you, both, for your time and for answering our questions…”